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6.22.2015

A Few of My Favorite Things

Here it is halfway through another year, and I wonder where the months went and what have I accomplished so far this year. It’s been a busy year already. I knew it would be. The first four and a half months were spent doing tax returns for other people. I barely got mine filed on time. As an accountant, I find the thing I like doing least is my own accounting. I hate reconciling my bank account, and I detest doing my own taxes. I can do that for other people, but mine seems to languish. Truthfully, I haven’t reconciled my bank account in months. That’s really bad since I’ll roll my eyes when one of my clients does the same thing.

When I started thinking about all the stuff I’d have to take care of this year, I panicked. Will I have any time to do something fun?

After reflecting on everything I have to get done this year, my head starts to hurt. I need some down time, I tell myself. With a heavy sigh, my mind turns toward a few of my favorite things. (Thank you very much Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music.)

SO here it is. A list of a few of my favorite things (not necessarily in any kind of order):

1.Tex-Mex food – I could seriously eat Tex-Mex three times a day. Here is a picture of my favorite cheese enchilada recipe.

2.Mountains – I’ve loved the mountains since my mother showed me here picture books of her travels to Colorado from before I have born. My husband and I have taken many trips to the mountains in Colorado, Tennesse, and Washington. We’d go back to any of those places in a heartbeat. Mountains or Beach? Mountains. Every time. Here is a picture of my favorite mountain, Mt. Rainier.

3.Shopping – My daughter and I are Olympic class shoppers. It’s not the purchasing that I love. It’s the bonding with the girl. We could go and not buy a thing and have a blast. Here is a picture of me and my daughter.

I’m sure we had been shopping recently when this picture was taken. Here is my original post on my thoughts about Black Friday shopping.

4.Playing Mario Kart 8 – Okay, you weren’t expecting that from a woman of a few years. (No, I am not telling you my age.) I love spending time with my kids this way. It’s better than the two of them going to their own rooms alone with their electronics. I’m not sure what they think about me pouting when I don’t play very well. I admit it. I’m kind of…okay a lot…competitive. Here is a picture of the screen when I placed 1st on Rainbow Road.

If you don’t know what Rainbow Road is, don’t worry about it. It’s a gamer thing. I don’t have an original post about playing video games, but perhaps one day I will. Here is a post on WebMD about Video Game Addiction. Apparently, it's a real thing.

5.Netflix Marathons – Every once in a while, I will become obsessed with a television show and watch episodes of it back-to-back-to-back. Currently, I am watching Leverage. I really enjoy the characters on the show and I appreciate the fact the director/producer didn’t take the show’s premise too seriously.

This compulsion might not be a good thing since I’m spending time watching Netflix instead of writing. My daughter and I recently finished watching every episode of Gilmore Girls. Now, there’s a show to give a writer a little inspiration.Maybe watching a lot of television shows is really research for my writing. Yeah, I’ll go with that excuse. I don’t have a picture of me watching Netflix or an original post on the subject of compulsive Netflix watching, but I think there might be a blog post on that subject coming. Here is a post on Psychology Today about binge watching.

SO I asked myself, what would be my perfect retreat? Since I need a break from everything, what would I do with my time? Of course, I’d fly to a city or town near the mountains with a great scenic view, because who wants to drive that far. Then, I’d find a motel with Wi-Fi close to a Tex-Mex restaurant. Before the trip was over, I’d hit all the souvenir shops. Late every night, after I was exhausted from going hiking, I’d kick back with a couple of episodes of my current Netflix obsession. Might have to dream about playing Mario Kart for a few days. Four out of five ain’t bad, right?

So here's a picture of the scene from our motel room in Buena Vista, Colorado, on our last trip to the mountains.

My son just returned from a Young Life camp at Frontier Ranch near Buena Vista. I confess to an extreme amount of jealousy.In all of this, there has to be some inspiration for my writing, right? Really, everywhere I go provided me with a bit of inspiration. Check out some of my inspired work (at least, in my humble opinion) by clicking on the book covers below or go to my Amazon Author Page to check out more of my books.

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Some stuff about me...

Denise wrote her
first story when she was in high school—seventeen hand-written pages on
school-ruled paper and an obvious rip-off of the last romance novel she read.
She earned a degree in accounting, giving her some nice skills to earn a little
money, but her passion has always been writing. She has written numerous short
stories and more than a few full-length novels. Her favorite pastimes when
she’s not writing are spending time with her family, traveling, reading, and
scrapbooking. She lives in Louisiana with the most wonderful husband and the two best children in the whole wide world.